


Kitchen Sink Stew

by Annie46fic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comfort Food, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Dean Winchester, spoilers seasons 1-8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 18:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annie46fic/pseuds/Annie46fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through the years Dean has always relied on this one tasty method of comfort and he always offers it to Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kitchen Sink Stew

**1983**

Dean felt sick and his head hurt. 

He snuggled down under the covers like mommy had told him, closing his eyes and swallowing hard. His throat hurt and he wanted to cry but he was going to be brave, show his mommy how good he could be.

“Dean?”

Mommy appeared next to his bed. She was smiling soft and sweet, her blonde hair framing her face. She was carrying a tray and Dean couldn’t help but lift his head and sniff; a mouth-watering scent filling his nostrils and making him feel hungry all of a sudden, the sick feeling in his stomach fading away into a rumble.

He let his mommy prop him up on the pillow. She sat down beside him with a little huff, her fat belly filling out the pretty dress she wore. Dean felt a tingle of excitement deep within because he couldn’t wait to see his new brother, a baby brother just for him to care for.

“This is daddy’s recipe.” His mommy dipped the spoon into the steaming bowl. “Kitchen Sink Stew.” She beamed at him and he opened his mouth obediently, his tongue burning as he swallowed the sharp tasting liquid. His nose tingled and he sneezed once, the stew warm and spicy on his tongue.

His mommy laughed and wiped his nose and his eyes, her movements gentle. Dean wriggled against her, the taste of the stew still on his tongue, his tummy grumbling for more. He opened his mouth again and his mommy fed him another spoonful. He swallowed it again and his throat didn’t hurt as much.

“Its good mommy,” Dean whispered, finally, when the bowl was empty. “Do you think daddy will teach me how to make it?”

“Of course baby,” his mommy said. “Do you feel better now?”

Dean nodded and he yawned, settling down on his pillows and feeling a lot better. He fell asleep really quickly and dreamed about daddy teaching him and his brand new baby brother how to make stew.

****

**1984**

Sammy was crying so loud and Dean didn’t know what to do. It was his birthday but daddy had gone out early this morning and still hadn’t come back. Dean knew daddy had forgotten his birthday and they hadn’t had Christmas either. Dean’s tummy was hurting as he thought about mommy and he wondered if he should make some of daddy’s stew. Mommy always made Kitchen Sink Stew when Dean was feeling ill or sad and maybe if Dean tried to make it Sammy would stop crying.

He leaned over Sammy’s crib and stroked his fingers though the tuft of hair that was sticking up on Sammy’s head. Sammy’s little face was scrunched up and his eyes were damp. Dean swallowed.

“It’s gonna' be okay Sammy,” he said.

He stood on a stool and got out a dirty pan. The house they were in was nothing like the one that burned in Kansas. Mommy had kept that house spick and span but this one was grimy and cold. Dean didn’t like the smell and he was always cold. Sammy didn’t like it either and he was still crying, his cries becoming pitiful and more desperate.

The stove was high and he was trying to light the gas when the door opened and daddy walked in. His daddy looked tired, beard thick on his chin. He dropped the bag he was carrying and ran over to Dean pulling him away from the stove and shaking his head, his voice gruffer than Dean had ever heard it.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Sammy’s sad.” Dean felt tears well up in his eyes and he wiped at them. “I was going to make him stew to cheer him up.”

“Oh Dean.” His daddy dropped to his knees and took Dean into his arms. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” 

“S’okay, daddy.” Dean snuggled into his daddy, smelling gun oil and whiskey, the now familiar scent of his childhood. “I just wanted to make things better.”

“Sammy’s too young to drink the stew Dean and you don’t know how to make it.” His daddy shook his head. “How about I show you.”

Dean nodded excitedly. Daddy hadn’t remembered his birthday and his stomach still hurt because mommy wasn’t here but if he learned to make the special stew things would already feel better. Sammy was still wailing and daddy went over to him and picked him up, shushing him.

“Just a wet diaper, Dean,” his daddy said. “Nothing to worry about.”

Dean watched as daddy changed Sammy’s diaper and, when Sammy was finally sleeping, daddy picked Dean up and carried him over to the kitchen.

“Now about that stew,” he said.

And Dean would always remember the first and last time his dad taught him to make something that wasn’t a weapon or a trap or a spell.

****

**2001**

Dean could hear his brother’s pitiful sniffs behind the door and he hovered for a moment with his hand on the handle. Somewhere in the house his dad was lying drunk and Dean knew he wouldn’t wake until late noon and that Sam would be long gone before he crawled out of his pit.

Dean swallowed down the lump that threatened to choke him. He had always hated it when his dad and Sammy fought but tonight’s fight had been the worst he had ever seen and he also knew there was no coming back from this one.

He wished Sam had told him about Stanford.

It didn’t take him long to prepare the stew. They had all the ingredients; always had the ingredients and Dean could make it in his sleep. He carried it over to his brother’s room and banged on the door.

“Come on Sam,” his voice sounded hoarse even to his own ears. “You need to eat something before you go.”

There was a long silence and the door opened slowly. Sam peered out and Dean physically winced when he saw the blue bruising around his eye, the glint of hazel hidden underneath the swelling. The other eye was smeared with tears and Sam looked pale, his duffle already flung over his shoulder ready to go.

“Sammy.” Dean didn’t know what to do or say. It was real now, Sam was leaving and Dean didn’t know if he should love or hate him for it.

Sam took the stew from his shaking hands and sniffed at it eyes closed as if he was never going to smell it again. His smile was forced but he dipped the spoon into the liquid and took a swallow, his good eye watering again, his mouth turned down, bottom lip wobbling.

“You need a lift to the bus station?” Dean found his voice but Sam soundlessly shook his head. He finished the stew and handed the bowl back to Dean, shutting his door abruptly. Dean clutched at the dirty bowl as if it were a lifeline, the sound of Sam’s door locking making him jump a little.

Sam was long gone when his father woke the next morning and Dean gave him the rest of the stew to fend off his hangover.

****

**2005**

The stink of smoke will never come out of Sam’s clothes so Dean shoves them into the trash, buries them deep down. The only thing he salvages is Sam’s jacket – it’s his favorite and Dean isn’t gonna let that one go. He figures that maybe he can run to some fancy industrial dry clean. He never wants to smell burning again.

Sam is sitting in the motel room with his head in his hands. He is sobbing, shoulders hunched, legs tense. Dean looks at him, drinks in the sight of his brother. He missed dad a bit when he went AWOL but he has never missed anyone or anything quite as much as he missed Sam.

Dean was born to be a protector. He had been mom, dad and elder sibling to his brother and he never wanted to relinquish that role. It had been hard when Sam left him, shown him he didn’t need Dean, shown him how independent, how normal he could be.

Now Sam’s normality, his independence had blown up in a mass of flame and he was left totally dependent on Dean again. 

Dean knelt next to his brother and put his hand on Sam’s shaking shoulder. His own throat hurt and his stomach was rolling. He wanted to hold Sam but he knew his brother would pull away. He squeezed Sam’s shoulder instead and then he looked around for a solution.

He managed to get Sam settled in bed for the first time since they left Stanford. Sam was looking pale, thin, and wan and Dean just wanted him to sleep and get some food in him. Nothing he offered Sam seemed to do the trick but he had one last ace up his sleeve and he couldn’t help but laugh at his own cunning.

The mini-mart down the street from the motel had the ingredients – Dean isn’t surprised – and it only takes him ten or fifteen minutes to make, microwave and serve. By the time Sam opens his eyes the stew is on the table and the motel room is enveloped by the sharp and savory scent of it.

Sam looks at Dean for the longest moment and then – he smiles.

****

**2008**

The stew is their last supper served up with bread and tears the night before it happens. Dean doesn’t even want to think about it, knows he will never do this again, never make this again. It used to be comfort but now, now it is sweet smelling torture and Dean can’t make eye contact with Sam while they eat.

He thought he had seen Sam miserable before but this is way off the scale and, for the first time since he did it, Dean regrets selling his soul.

****

**2009**

Sam pukes up everything while he is in the Panic Room and Dean gives up trying to feed him. Dean knows what he wants but he isn’t gonna let him have it. If he had Ruby in his sights right now she wouldn’t be standing upright and he wishes he could just blow her away, blow her right out of his brother’s life.

Dean makes the stew because he can; he knows Sam won’t eat it but he hopes that – somehow – the sight and scent of it will ground him.

Later, his brother’s fists making his face ache, he realizes that Sam is so far gone there might be nothing that will save him. Sam believes he is doing the right thing, believes that this will redeem him and Dean – Dean can only watch in horror as their world unfurls around them and Lucifer rises.

There is no cure for any of that.

****

**2010**

Before Sam said, _Yes_ to Lucifer he had needed something. The comforting things from their childhood had not been enough and even a vat of Kitchen Sink Stew wouldn’t help.

Their relationship shifted subtly in a way that Dean had never even considered until it happened. Sam gripping his shoulders; Sam clinging to him in fear; Sam’s mouth on his own. It wasn’t tender or like any sex Dean had had before. How could it be? It was sex with his baby brother, incest. It was bad and wrong but it was one of the most Earth exploding moments of Dean’s life and it was something he would cling to when Sam had gone.

He was battered and bruised when he watched Sam jump. His brother gone in the blink of an eye. Both brothers really but Adam had never really been a Winchester in anything but name. He hadn’t lived like a hunter but he hadn’t deserved to die like that, plunging into the pit, into hell.

Bobby knew the recipe; he made a bowl and heated some bread and he watched Dean eat, rubbing his neck repeatedly, as if he thought it might break again if he dared to even move.

The taste of cayenne was still in his mouth when he hugged Bobby goodbye. He didn’t think he would ever see him again. He didn’t want to leave but he had to do what Sammy had asked him, had to give it a try.

Maybe, if he asked nicely, Lisa might make stew for him and he could pretend things were normal again.

****

Soulless Sam didn’t eat healthy stuff, he wasn’t exactly careful in the bedroom department either but he still looked good. Still looked like Dean’s brother but just a bigger, bulkier version. He was sharp and quick and a fucking good hunter but, despite all of these things, he wasn’t Sam. He couldn’t get close to him; there was no intimacy between them and Dean didn’t want any. Sam, on the other hand, was constantly pushing, hands, mouth, feet all in Dean’s personal space. Sam beating off in the darkness of the motel room. Sam amusing himself because he didn’t sleep. Sam walking around naked with no shame whatsoever. Despite this Dean won’t touch him and, eventually, Sam gives up and goes back to fucking whoever he wants.

There is some comfort in being left alone.

When Sam gets his soul back he’s starving and Dean watches as he eats sandwich after sandwich, drinks down the cool beers. What he wants to do is feed him stew and fuck him senseless. There is a certain measure of wrong in that, the stew reminds him of baby Sammy and yet the man before him is still Sammy and not a baby anymore.

They’re intimate at last, Bobby snoring in the other room, them huddled on one of the single beds, Sam wrapped up tight in Dean’s arms, the taste of cayenne sharp on his tongue. He feels warm and sated, Sammy safe again. Their modes of comfort might have altered slightly over the years but that didn’t matter.

Stew or sex –Sam belonged to Dean always.

****

**2011**

Sam was so sick that Dean didn’t think they would make it through this one. His wall was tumbling down and he was barely able to cope anymore. Stew wouldn’t heal him but Cas – back from the dead – could. When Dean got Sammy out of that place he just wanted to run, to take Sam and run. Fuck Dick, Fuck the Leviathans. They had taken everything – Bobby, Frank, his baby and he wouldn’t let them take his brother. They wouldn’t stop though, couldn’t. Dean gave Sam one night to sleep it off and then bundled him, still a little dazed and confused into the Impala and onwards, ever onwards.

When he ganks Dick everything goes wrong.

There is no stew and no comfort in Purgatory and he misses his brother like crazy.

Until he comes back and finds out that Sam didn’t miss him at all.

****

**2013**

He’d never met Amelia but he hated her with a passion.

It was stupid and childish to be so jealous of the girl his brother had loved so much that he had given up hunting for her, given up Dean for her. Dean thought of it often, Sam wrapped in someone else’s arms, someone else caring for him, making sure he was okay. Sam once mentioned that Amelia had a signature dish of hotdogs and spaghetti that she cooked up on special occasions. Not Kitchen Sink Stew – not the comfort dish of their childhood and beyond, but something else, something intimate between her and Sam, like the sex and Riot and all the other little things that they shared.

Regardless Sam had – eventually – chosen him and he had phoned Benny that night to tell him goodbye. It didn’t seem fair for him to demand Sam leave his girl, his _normal_ if Dean wasn’t going to make a similar sacrifice. That night they had eaten pie together and it had been a start, the wound not quite healed but plastered over at least. They’d drunk beer and watched the fight but they hadn’t touched their bottles together, just nodded and forced their smiles.

It wasn’t quite over.

***

Charlie’s troops ate heartily that night after the battle. Cauldrons of the stew sharp with the stink of onions, cayenne and all the secret ingredients that Dean would never tell a soul about. They drank whiskey until their heads were fuzzy and the Winchester brothers staggered back to their _borrowed_ tent together and lay, flesh against flesh, joined again at last.

***

And so to the trials, to Sam sick and, possibly, dying. This was no demon blood addiction, no possession, no man without a soul. This time the problem wasn’t Sam’s mind but his body, rotting away almost in front of Dean’s eyes, the coughing up of blood, the weakness in his limbs. The trials were doing something to Sam, damaging him in a way that not even Castiel could cure or understand.

Sam threw the stew at the wall the third time Dean tried to feed it to him.

All Dean wanted to do, all Dean had ever wanted to do, was to take care of his baby brother. 

_’Look out for Sammy’_

Dean’s one job; his _lifetimes_ work if you will, was to make sure Sam was happy, healthy, and protected.

He felt that sometimes he had failed more often than he had succeeded but he had to keep trying. He loved his brother, loved him in all the ways it was possible to love someone and he would never, ever love another person as much or as passionately.

Sam might be on the verge of saving the world but Dean only wanted to do one thing. 

Save Sam.

So here they are – the third trial only hours away – sitting on the Men of Letter’s extremely comfortable sofa with bowls of the one thing Dean would always rely on for comfort.

The stew might not have magic healing powers but finally Sam was eating it.

Whatever happened, whatever they faced – they faced it together, united and strong. 

Full and bolstered up on John Winchester’s very own Kitchen Sink Stew.

End


End file.
